


The Time We Have

by Melime



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Community: rs_games, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Marauders' Era, Moving In Together, R/S Games 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8356069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime
Summary: Sirius and Remus are about to move in together, but the incertitude of war gives Remus doubts.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [O Tempo que Temos](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8696080) by [Melime GreenLeaf (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Melime%20GreenLeaf)



> R/S Games 2016 - Day 18 - Team Time
> 
> **Prompt:** #54 - "Life isn't about waiting for the right time to come. It's all about doing all the right things in the time that is given to you." - Unknown
> 
> **Notes:** thank you to my beta [feygrim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feygrim/)!

It was a terrible idea. Actually, in all the history of terrible ideas Sirius had and couldn’t be convinced not to act upon, this one was probably the pinnacle, which, considering how many terrible ideas he had, was really saying something. And that was exactly what Remus told him the first time he brought it up, and the second, and the third too, adding a ‘never going to happen’ for good measure, but the fourth involved some firewhiskey at a particularly beautiful starry night of new moon at the astrology tower and Remus’ judgement was a bit worse than usual, which was also saying something considering it wasn’t all that sound under normal circumstances, so he ended up agreeing to what was probably the worst idea of the century. Seriously, it should be printed in history books, ‘local werewolf and disowned Black heir move in together’, and he somehow had agreed to that.

Of course, that happened in their sixth year, just a few months after they decided to stop acting like idiots - thanks to no small help from James and Peter, who turned out to be rather incompetent matchmakers, but at least they managed to make the two idiots see what was right in front of them - and finally admitted how they felt about each other, or rather, had a silly argument in the library which somehow - in a way that neither was sure how had happened - turn into kisses, which was basically the same thing, even though the actual talk only came days later. The point was, their future post-Hogwarts seemed not only distant, but surrounded with incertitude. They were living in times of war, after all, which was why an idea that would normally only be bad was actually a catastrophical trainwreck. No one knew if they would be alive at the end of the month, let alone if making plans for over a year in the future had any point at all. It was ridiculous, they were fighting in a war, not living a “let’s play house” fantasy, and honestly, what was he doing going along with it until this far when really, either one of them could die fighting that very night and, as heartbreaking as that would be, it would not be a surprise.

“You aren’t getting cold feet now, are you?” Sirius asked playfully, nudging him with a large box.

Remus hadn’t realized he had stopped in the middle of the hallway, still with a box in his hands, immersed in thoughts about his predicament. “No, of course not.” He kept walking, too late to turn back now.

“Is this about the cockroaches? Because Mrs. P swears they have a great potion to get rid of them right away, even if it does smell like dragon excrement,” he said, walking behind Remus as there was no space for two people to walk side by side in the hallway.

Remus snorted. “And how do you know how dragon excrement smells like?”

“Oh, I have my sources,” Sirius said, and winked.

“You know I can’t tell if you are winking if I have my back to you, right?” Remus said, rolling his eyes.

“Of course you can, the same way I can tell you were just rolling your eyes at me, otherwise, why would you ask me that?” They knew each other so well it would be nauseatingly romantic if it wasn’t so familiar. “Anyway, we can get rid of the cockroaches by the end of the week.”

“No, for some reason cockroaches really don’t bother me. Nor the fact that this entire building seems like it may collapse at any moment. Something about having seen how durable even worse looking places can be.”

The apartment wasn’t the best of places. In fact, the best thing that could be said about it was that it was cheap. Make that the only good thing, unless you count ‘will be rented without any questions asked’ in the plus category, which, considering his furry little problem, was not only good, but almost a necessity. Muggles could get suspicious, wizards would certainly figure out faster than you can spell ‘werewolf’, but in a building full of suspicious behavior, he would fit right in, or rather, they would fit right in, since Sirius also wasn’t ideal tenant material. Even if it wasn’t a wizard-only building, and as such they had to carry the boxes the old fashioned way instead of just levitating them. Well, actually they tried covering them with the invisibility cloak, but that lead to a small incident involving a one-eyed cat and the fact they forgot to cover the bottom of the boxes, so yes, they were going to have to carry them now.

“Then what’s wrong?”

By Merlin, Sirius was like a dog with a bone. No, scratch that, that was just too easy and Remus wouldn’t sink to that level. The point was, Sirius wasn’t about to ignore Remus’ clear hesitancy, so there was no point in trying to hide it.

“What are we even doing?” he asked, stopping in the middle of the stairs, while they were still far enough that James, Lily, and Peter wouldn’t hear them.

“Moving boxes?” Sirius said with a raised eyebrow, wiggling the box for emphasis.

“Careful with that, you might break something.”

Sirius turned the box, showing the clear label ‘clothes’. “Yes, leather jackets are notorious for being extremely fragile and breaking at the slightest touch.”

“Fine, then you won’t break anything, except maybe the box itself, and don’t think I’ll help you gather all the clothes from the stairs.”

“Duly noted. Now, what do you mean by that? I assume you aren’t talking about moving our meager belongings, that surprisingly needed more boxes than I was expecting, to our brand new apartment. Well, apartment that was new at some point. Probably.”

Remus sighed. He started this, after all. Or rather, Sirius started this when he convinced him to go along with this, but Remus was supposed to be more or less a voice of reason. Less, definitively less, and change that to ‘look like a voice of reason’, but still, between the two of them, he was the one closest to having a working good sense, even if he didn’t listen to it as often as he would like.

“What are we even doing with our lives? Making plans as if we weren’t fighting in a war, pretending that this will be a calm domestic life while our friends are dying! We could die at any moment, it’s naive to think that this won’t happen when we have seen it happen to so many people close to us. And here we are, looking for an apartment and moving in and pretending that deatheaters aren’t murdering people every night!”

Sirius unceremoniously tossed the box to the bottom of the stairs, not caring that he would have to gather all the clothes that fell off. Then he took Remus’ box, and after his clear look of ‘don’t you dare tossing that’, he levitated it to the top of the stairs. No one was around to see it anyway. “Hey,” he said, stepping closer. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Since you asked me to do this, but the closer we got to it, the more absurd the idea seemed. It just, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like the right time to be doing this.”

“Well, you wanna know why I asked you? Exactly because of all of this.”

Remus frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We spent the last few years hearing about things getting worse every time, and the closest we got to leaving, the more Hogwarts seemed like a safe haven. And I knew we would be joining the fight as soon as we could, and that that meant there was a chance we wouldn’t see the end of this. That’s exactly why we shouldn’t waste any more time, because we don’t have the luxury of waiting to see how this will end before starting to live our lives. Maybe you or me or both of us won’t live to see how things will be after the war is over, or maybe we will. Either way, I don’t want to waste this time. If I die next week or next month, next year, I want to know I’ve spent every moment I possibly could with you, and if we survive this, then you are stuck with me until we are both older than Dumbledore.” He had to add a joke at the end, he wouldn’t be Sirius otherwise.

Remus laughed, more to stop the emotional tears that were threatening to come than because the joke was any good. “Then I guess I would find out if I’m only after you for your lustrous head of hair.”

Sirius touched his hair defensively. “Hey, don’t say that, I’m keeping this hair until I’m one hundred and fifty, you’ll see.”

“Yes, I would like to see that. And you are right, I don’t want to look back and think we wasted any time.” He gave Sirius a quick peck on the lips. “Come on, we should go before the others come looking for us.”

“Fine, I just have to put all this clothes back in the box.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to help you gather them,” Remus said, but he still followed Sirius down the stairs.


End file.
